Psychoanalysis is Sigmund Freud’s work, thought to be created between 1900 and 1939, which still is a very vibrant thread in history and psychology today. According to Sigmund Freud the unconscious mind is a reservoir of repressed impulses and desires in your mind, while you may be completely awake you are still unaware of the mental processes that are taking place. Though the repressed impulses control the way we think, act, and above all feel. Freud also talks about the conflict within each individual between the internalized ideals (your superego) and impulses (your id), also how your ego (your conscious self) tries to keep out the awareness of such using a defense mechanism to distort reality around you. These processes are manipulated throughout the stages of childhood. Freud claims that the dynamics of every person is crafted by the childhood experiences and the level of influence from parental roles. His main ideas circle around attachment, the cognitive unconscious, ego, superego, id, psychoanalytic theory, and sexual development as a child, though the scientific relevance and credibility are always being contested by many critics throughout history and time.
Psychoanalysis is a method used for understanding the mental processes and the way they function, stages of growth, and the development of human behavior and experience, but many critics challenge its scientific creditability to successfully treat patients throughout the time it has been practiced.
To understand the main ideas of psychoanalysis we must start at the beginning discussing the psychic apparatus; which is the id, ego, and super ego. In short, the id contains everything already in place at birth (like human instinct) and the unconscious part of your mental state. It’s a pool of instincts, such as sex and aggression, ready to be released at anytime. The ego is responsible for controlling the id and your instincts; it serves as a buffer
Cited: freud.html (accessed April 12, 2010). http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/beystehner.html (accessed April 12, 2010) 219848/Sigmund-Freud (accessed April 12, 2010). sigmund_freud.htm (accessed April 12, 2010). 5. Freud, Sigmund. "The Unconscious." A Note on the Unconscious (1912) and Civilization and Its Discontents (1930). 1912 & 1930. Pgs 281-284. Seventh Edition: Sources of the Western Tradition: Volume 2; From the Renaissance to the Present. (accessed April 12, 2010). April 12, 2010).